KINECTING DOTS

Kinecting Dots is an interactive ‘quantified self’ visualization with a competitive twist. Born from two projects, one involving the X Box Kinect, another using data collected from the Moves app, Kinecting Dots uses a gestural interface to 'gamify' visualization and encourage interaction. It presents a different way of looking at everyday city travel.

Location data is captured via Moves (a smartphone app that automatically records walking, cycling and running data) and coded in Processing (an open-source programming language and environment) to alter the images received by the Kinect, creating a new visualization.

The gesture interface allows users to view daily journeys and distance traveled via bar charts, maps, and text data - all through the lens of the Xbox 360's Kinect Sensor. The closest position to the camera is tracked with a white circle. This acts like a cursor, so users can point at buttons to cycle through days and toggle between kilometers and steps. By stepping forward, the user’s map from the selected day is displayed and if they step even closer a complete text overview of their data appears.

The underlying idea of Kinecting Dots is to visualize two users’ daily activity data in an ambient setting. Its competitive component is a daily goal measured in steps taken (8,000) or distance traveled (5 kilometers). As users interact with Kinecting Dots through the day, they can check how close they are to achieving the daily goal and beating their opponent. Users can toggle between visualizing how many steps they have taken and kilometers traveled. They can also cycle through previous days' data. Below is a recording of two users interacting with Kinecting Dots.